Apple Strikes Gold With New iPhone Models

If you’re an Apple fanboi, fangrl, customer, iPhone owner, or a member of the technorati elite politburo who could not make it to the Apple Event in Cupertino, just check out the video online.

In less than two hours Apple showed why the company remains number one where it counts. Shareholder value, customer satisfaction, smartphone industry revenue and profits. Apple’s new iPhone line brings the future to the present. Gold? Indeed.

The least expensive and smallest iPhone in the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, and iPhone Xr era is the seemingly diminutive 4.7-inch iPhone 7 at $449 for 32GB. That’s right. People still buy devices with 32GB of storage.

Obviously, Apple is not buying into the less is more and small is beautiful mantra and going all in on big iPhone screens– bigger than the original iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus which launched the last and largest product upgrade cycle. And, Apple is going all in on Face ID, too. No new iPhone model has Touch ID.

iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max are the ultimate in Apple luxury. Unless you add in Apple Watch Series 4. Not only is the Max Apple’s largest OLED display ever, it features the same dual camera wide-angle and telephoto found in iPhone Xs. iPhone Xr does not have the telephoto. All three Xs models have the new Apple-designed A-Series A12 Bionic CPU.

For all the details you’ll need to decide which model to upgrade to, check out the Apple Special Event video.

None of the new iPhones are available to order. Yet. iPhone Xs and Xs Max will be available for pre-order September 14. iPhone Xr will ship in October.

What makes the new X models worthy of an upgrade? It will depend upon your smartphone requirements, of course, but Apple seems to push the bar higher every year– not so much with a primary new feature, but definitely in the package. For example, the 6.5-inch display on iPhone Xs Max is touted as a Super Retina, with 2688×1242 resolution, and pixel density of 458 ppi. The resolution in iPhone Xs is slightly smaller but still comes in at 458 ppi.

Apple claims the new HDR displays have the industry’s best color accuracy and the most durable glass screen on a smartphone. Apple has gone all in on HDR, too, with support for HDR 10 and Dolby Vision, plus HDR photos with more than 50-percent greater dynamic range, and HDR video. Even water resistance is up a notch to IP68. And, yes, all three models feature wireless charging.

The next few days will have various and sundry technology news outlets spilling the details from Wednesday’s Event. Hot on the heels of news will come fake analysis from critics who will find many things wrong with Apple’s new direction, what Apple should have done, and why the company will fall from grace. Someday. Soon. Maybe.

Regardless, check out the video and specifications. Apple has a unique ability to jump forward with specific features, disrupt other markets or industries, and push the technology platform forward in iterative steps. A perfect example is Wil’s missive Guess Who Ruined Apple’s iPhone Party?; a reveal of a lesser known Chinese smartphone maker who plans to sell a phone with a Touch ID-like fingerprint scanner embedded in the display itself; sans Home button.

Remember, Apple sells more premium smartphones on planet earth than all other competitors combined; even Samsung. That means Apple’s supply chain requirements are massive, so a phone maker here or there may have a feature or function that iPhones won’t get for a year or two (or never) but it’s easy to push that kind of innovation when a company only sells a few hundred thousand or a million phones a year. Apple may sell 250-million iPhones in the next year.

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About Natalia Nowak

My husband, Nathan, and I have used Macs for nearly 25 years. We're teachers at a private school in Chicago, IL. I'm also the school's resident Mac system administrator, PC troubleshooter, and a diehard Mac diva and iPhone hacker. Read more of my articles here.